Russell Findlay backs withdrawing UK from ECHR to tackle ‘unsustainable’ illegal immigration

Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has backed his party’s plans to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as he insisted that levels of illegal immigration were now “unsustainable”.

The Conservative used a debate at Holyrood to claim that “illegal immigration is causing strain in our local communities and on our nation’s finances”.

He told MSPs: “That is why I endorse Kemi Badenoch’s plan to withdraw from the ECHR and to deport those who do come here illegally.

“This is the only credible way we can again take control of our borders.”

Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan said the ECHR ‘represents the difference between barbarity and civilisation’. PA Media

He spoke out as Tories brought forward a motion raising concerns about the impact of illegal migration on housing in Scotland to Holyrood.

Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan, however, hit out at this “right-wing nonsense finding itself in our national Parliament” as she criticised Findlay.

She told the Tory leader pulling out of the ECHR would leave the UK “alongside Russia and Belarus as the only ones not a signatory”.

McAllan said: “The ECHR promotes the rule of law, the protection of individuals, it represents the difference between barbarity and civilisation.

“It says you have rights by virtue of being human and human alone, and we should be suspicious of anyone who tries to drag us from it.”

The clash at Holyrood came days after Badenoch announced to the Conservative conference in Manchester that her party would withdraw the UK from the ECHR if returned to power, as part of a plan to deport 150,000 people a year from the UK.

Speaking on Wednesday, Findlay said: “Concerns are increasing in many Scottish communities. People can see that uncontrolled immigration is unsustainable. People know that foreign criminals should be sent packing.

“That is not an extreme position, but the views of ordinary, mainstream Scotland, of sensible Scots who increasingly struggle to understand an out-of-touch left-wing political class.”

Having “concerns about immigration” is “not racist”, Findlay added, saying that these views were “not far-right” but were “simply right”.

McAllan responded by criticising this “right-wing nonsense finding itself in our national Parliament”.

The housing secretary insisted: “People are not illegal, seeking asylum is a right.”

She also stressed in the debate on immigration that “we are talking about people, people with hopes, people with aspirations, people who have suffered”, saying they were “human beings who should be treated with dignity and respect”.